The Great Escape (1963) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 31 titles created 27 Jun 2012 a list of 22 titles created 12 Nov 2012 a list of 49 titles created 09 Jan 2013 a list of 28 titles created 10 Aug 2014 a list of 34 titles created 08 Dec 2014 Title: The Great Escape (1963) 8.2/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 7 nominations.

See more awards » Videos After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it. Director: David Lean Two Western bank/train robbers flee to Bolivia when the law gets too close. Director: George Roy Hill A man refuses to conform to life in a rural prison. Director: Stuart Rosenberg The story of T.E. Lawrence , the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks. Director: David Lean Two bounty hunters with the same intentions team up to track down a Western outlaw. Director: Sergio Leone In Chicago in September 1936, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker. Director: George Roy Hill Fred Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two Americans searching for work in Mexico, convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains. Director: John Huston An in-depth examination of the ways in which the U.S.

Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of people in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania. Director: Michael Cimino Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner and a young man. Director: Clint Eastwood A young recruit in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man. Director: Oliver Stone When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge. Director: William Wyler A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down. Director: Frank Capra Edit Storyline Based on a true story, a group of allied escape artist-type prisoners-of-war (POWs) are all put in an 'escape proof' camp. Their leader decides to try to take out several hundred all at once. The first half of the film is played for comedy as the prisoners mostly outwit their jailers to dig the escape tunnel. The second half is high adventure as they use boats and trains and planes to get out of occupied Europe.

Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> A Glorious Saga Of The R.A.F. See more » Genres: 4 July 1963 (USA) See more » Also Known As: El gran escape See more » Filming Locations: 4-Track Stereo (Westrex Recording System)| Mono Color: Did You Know? Trivia Steve McQueen 's character Hilts was based on amalgamation of several characters, including Major Dave Jones, a flight commander during Doolittle's Raid who made it to Europe and was shot down and captured and Colonel Jerry Sage, who was an OSS agent in the North African desert when he was captured. Col. Sage was able to don a flight jacket and pass as a flier otherwise he would have been executed as a spy. Another inspiration was probably Sqn Ldr Eric Foster who escaped no less than seven times from German prisoner-of-war camps. See more » Goofs The film shows a large number of the escapees being shot in one common space at one time. In reality, the 50 were shot in many different places, sometimes alone and sometimes in small groups. See more » Quotes Hilts : Hold on to yourself, Bartlett.

You're twenty feet short. Bartlett : What do you mean, twenty feet short? Hilts : You're twenty feet short of the woods. The hole is right here in open. The guard is between us and the lights. (Rugby,UK.) – See all my reviews During World War Two the Germans build a new prison camp, Stalag Luft III, for the express purpose of housing many of their most troublesome captured Allied airmen. However, all this serves to do is to pool the resources of some of the most ingenious escape artists in captivity and fill them with a resolve to engineer a mass breakout from the camp. Based largely on real events, this film has assumed classic status over the years and its easy to understand why. Quite simply, it excells in many departments. Director John Sturges was at the height of his creative powers and he keeps a firm grip on the proceedings. Although the film runs close to three hours it never feels sluggish, while at the same time winding up the tension gradually and developing the characters. The production design is first rate, to the point where Donald Pleasance (who had been a P.O.W.) felt quite intimidated by the vast set on his arrival.

Daniel Fapp's beautiful photography shows this and the picturesque German locations off to full effect. Put these virtues together with a good script, inspired casting and a classic score by Elmer Bernstein, and you have an object lesson in how to create an intelligent and exciting big budget adventure film. On the subject of the cast; Much is made of Steve McQueen's role. While I am a huge McQueen fan, I feel that some of the other performances are equal to, if not better than his. Richard Attenborough, James Garner, Donald Pleasance, Charles Bronson and Gordon Jackson are all excellent. Good too are James Coburn, James Donald, David McCallum and Hannes Messemer as the sympathetic Commandant. This is one of those films that I can happily watch time and time again. In September of this year a new print was screened at the NFT in London as part of an 'Attenborough at 80' season. It was a pleasure to see this on the big screen at last. For the most part the print was in very good condition. The DVD was one of the first that I ever bought some three and a half years ago, and I watched its inevitable Christmas screening on BBC2 last night.

I just never tire of it. In these days of brainless, poorly executed action fodder, its a joy to behold something that hits its targets so precisely. 96 of 124 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes The Magnificent Seven (1960) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error An oppressed Mexican peasant village hires seven gunfighters to help defend their homes.

Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC new and ongoing cinema releases, Us/Can, from Jan 13 13 January 2017 2:39 PM, -08:00 | a list of 40 titles created 01 Jun 2011 a list of 30 titles created 20 Jun 2012 a list of 28 titles created 29 Oct 2012 a list of 34 titles created 09 May 2015 a list of 36 titles created 4 weeks ago Title: The Magnificent Seven (1960) 7.8/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 5 nominations. See more awards » Videos Seven gunmen in the old west gradually come together to help a poor village against savage thieves.

Director: Antoine Fuqua Three survivors of the initial Magnificent Seven outfit, Chico, Chris and Vin, recruit four new members in order to re-form the outfit and defend a few Mexican villages from attacks by vicious bandits. Director: Burt Kennedy A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves. Director: Akira Kurosawa During World War II, a rebellious U.S. Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers. Director: Robert Aldrich Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II. Director: John Sturges A wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge. Director: Sergio Leone An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them. Director: Sam Peckinpah Marshal Chris Adams turns down a friend's request to help stop the depredations of a gang of Mexican bandits. When his wife is killed by bank robbers and his friend is killed capturing the ...

See full summary » Director: George McCowan A Civil War veteran embarks on a journey to rescue his niece from an Indian tribe. Director: John Ford A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a cripple, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy. Director: Howard Hawks An all guts, no glory San Francisco cop becomes determined to find the underworld kingpin that killed the witness in his protection. Director: Peter Yates A senator, who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw, returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed. Director: John Ford Edit Storyline A bandit terrorizes a small Mexican farming village each year. Several of the village elders send three of the farmers into the United States to search for gunmen to defend them. They end up with seven, each of whom comes for a different reason. They must prepare the town to repulse an army of thirty bandits who will arrive wanting food. Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> Once You've Met Them...You'll Never Forget Them.

See more » Genres: 23 November 1960 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Die glorreichen Sieben See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Trivia Steve McQueen , James Coburn and Charles Bronson all appeared together again in John Sturges next film The Great Escape (1963). This film had just been released in Germany while the next film was filming, and it was a big hit, so they were all besieged on set by autograph hunters. See more » Goofs When Chris and Vin begin driving the hearse up to Boot Hill, they pass the Belmar Hotel sign twice - once silently at the very start, and then again as they briefly discuss the towns they've come from a few moments later. See more » Quotes Calvera : [dying - to Chris] You came back - for a place like this. Why? A man like you. Why? And Introducing Horst Buchholz See more » Connections (Cincinnati, OH) – See all my reviews What could have been a fairly routine western is lifted into the realm of classic thanks to some smart casting, sturdy direction and a rousing music score.

A reworking of Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", the story concerns a Mexican village which is constantly pillaged by bandit Wallach and his small army of followers. Three of the villagers hire a mix of gunslingers to come back to protect and defend the town and rid it of the oppressors. Brynner leads the group (seven in total, hence the title) as they teach the farmers how to use a gun and prepare the town for the eventual onslaught from Wallach. The already tough odds are lengthened when some of the villagers begin to lose faith in the power of the seven. Brynner is solid in the lead role (though, unfortunately, his later role in "Westworld" adds an odd shading to his character here.) He, McQueen and Coburn define the word cool as they go about their various exploits before and after they join forces. McQueen and Coburn are men of few words, but of fierce actions when necessary. Bronson (rather young and handsome, though still a little craggy looking) does his best with a pretty mushy storyline involving the youth of the village. Buchholz overacts feverishly as a determined, but inexperienced youth.

Vaughn seems a tad out of place and has one major ham moment during a nightmare. Dexter (easily the most often forgotten member of the group) has a few moments, but his character is not particularly defined. Wallach excels in the showy role of the chief bandit. His brash performance is a great counterpoint to the more steely and solemn title gunmen. The villagers come off as hapless and pitiful, for the most part. Along the way, there are several memorable vignettes that showcase the charm of the actors involved. The casting director did an almost miraculous job of using known stars and picking supporting actors who would soon be just as big so that the film now has virtually an all-star cast. The biggest shot in the arm of all is the monumental score by Elmer Bernstein. The instantly recognizable title music is just one of the many great pieces he created for the film. The sometimes laconic story is carried a long way by his score. The concept of disparate characters being brought together for a common cause has been done many times, but rarely with this level of quality.

It's sometimes hard to believe that the film was made in 1960 as its look, content and cast make it seem like a later film. It was definitely a touchstone in the development of the western film. 86 of 110 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes The Magnificent Seven Collection [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Horst Buchholz, Brad Dexter, George Kennedy, Lee van Cleef, James Whitmore, Vladimir Sokoloff, Rosenda Monteros, Jorge Martinez de Hoyos, Whit Bissell, Val Avery, Bing Russell, Robert Fuller, Julian Mateos, Warren Oates, Claude Akins, Elisa MontÃ©s, Jordan Christopher, Fernando Rey, Emilio Fernandez, Monte Markham, Bernie Casey, Joe Don Baker, Reni Santoni, Michael Ansara, Thomas Scott, Wende Wagner, Frank Silvera, Luis Rivera, Stefanie Powers, Mariette Hartley, Michael Callan, Luke Askew, Pedro ArmendÃ¡riz Jr, James B.

Sikking, Ed Lauter, John Sturges, Burt Kennedy, Paul Wendkos, George McCowan, Ted Richmond, Vincent M. Fennelly, William A. Calihan: DVD & Blu-ray The Magnificent Seven Collection [DVD] Price: Â£10.58 & FREE UK Delivery on orders dispatched by Amazon over Â£20. Details Promotion Message Buy three box sets for Â£24 when dispatched from and sold by Amazon. 2 Promotion(s) In stock. Want it delivered by Friday, 20 Jan.? Order within 25 hrs 18 mins and choose AmazonGlobal Priority at checkout. Details Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available. Note: This item is eligible for click and collect. Details Pick up your parcel at a time and place that suits you. Choose from over 13,000 locations across the UK Prime members get unlimited deliveries at no additional cost How to order to an Amazon Pickup Location?

Find your preferred location and add it to your address book Dispatch to this address when you check out 28 new from Â£7.99 17 used from Â£3.16 3 collectible from Â£6.76 See all buying options Â£10.58 & FREE UK Delivery on orders dispatched by Amazon over Â£20. Details In stock. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available. Special Offers and Product Promotions Buy three box sets for Â£24 when dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Here's how (terms and conditions apply) Enjoy Â£1.00 credit to spend on movies or TV on Amazon Video when you purchase a DVD or Blu-ray offered by Amazon.co.uk. A maximum of 1 credit per customer applies. UK customers only. Offer ends at 23:59 GMT on Wednesday, December 20, 2017 Here's how (terms and conditions apply) Buy the selected items together This item:The Magnificent Seven Collection [DVD] by Yul Brynner DVD Â£10.58 In stock. Sent from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery on orders over Â£20.

Details The Great Escape [DVD] [1963] by Steve McQueen DVD Â£3.95 In stock. Sent from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery on orders over Â£20. Details What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item? Format: Box set, PAL Language: English Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats. ) Number of discs: 4 DVD Release Date: 15 Oct. 2001 Run Time: 415.00 minutes Product Description Product Description All four 'Magnificent Seven' films. The series begins with 'The Magnificent Seven' (1960). A small Mexican village, terrorised by the cutthroat Calvera (Eli Wallach) and his bandits, hire a team of seven mercenaries to expel the vile interloper. The seven are led by Chris (Yul Brynner), and they set about the job of training the terrified townfolk in the art of killing before meting out their own brand of justice.

Director John Sturges' re-make of Akira Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai' cemented star-like qualities on most of its cast, including James Coburn, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and Robert Vaughn. The first sequel, 'The Return of the Magnificent Seven' (1966), only has Yul Brunner from the original all-star cast. Chris Adams (Brynner) is sent for to help a Mexican village get rid of a tyrannical rancher (Emilio Fernandez) who is bullying the villagers into building a church as a memorial for his son. Adams rounds up the usual suspects (another six to make up the magic number) from prison and other places of ill-repute and the new Seven head for the Mexican border. 'Guns of the Magnificent Seven' (1969) sees George Kennedy take over the Yul Brynner role of Chris Adams, the only surviving member of the original Seven. Adams puts together another six bandits in order to help a group of Mexican rebels free their leader from a prison run by the ruthless Colonel Diego (Michael Ansara).

Diego will go to any lengths to prevent the rebel leader from being freed but the Seven are also just as determined. Finally 'The Magnificent Seven Ride!' (1972) is set when the various heroes are all either too old to fight or languishing in jail. Chris Adams is newly married and trying to settle down with his wife but decides to help his buddy fight bandits after they kidnap his wife. From Amazon.co.uk The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turn samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa'sYojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars) and Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samuri was a natural for an American remake through this movie--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all.

The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of 60s stardom: Steve McQueen, JamesCoburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum...

followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride!--Robert Horton, Amazon.com Sponsored Products Related To This Item (What's this?) Gun Duel Between Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner No Contest - Guns.com Guns.com Tweet One of the amusing, insider affairs of 1960 film The Magnificent Seven was the on-and-off-camera rivalry (more like an active dislike) between its star Yul Brynner and newcomer Steve McQueen, who only had a TV show ( Wanted Dead or Alive ) and a part in the Sci-Fi movie The Blob to his credit. Both men had a charisma that leapt off the silver screen, but that was where the similarities ended. Brynner, a one-time Russian with Oriental eyes and a cat-like agility, was a skilled photographer, author and a major star, appearing in blockbuster films like The King and I and The Ten Commandants. Compared to Brynner back in 1960, McQueen was almost nobody, really just one of five other actors on the set of The Magnificent Seven including James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Charles Bronson, another face struggling to make their mark.

But McQueen was different. He had a ruthless drive to succeed at any cost. Vaughn, who would later achieve stardom in the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E, commented on it in a 2008 self-biography, A Fortunate Life. “In 1960 I was signed up for The Magnificent Seven playing alongside Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner,” Vaughn recalled. “Steve was intensely competitive. It wasn’t enough just to be successful —he had to be more successful than anyone else.” This drive, as many a biographer has postulated, may have been fueled by a troubled childhood. According to many accounts, McQueen inside was an angry man, dreaded by film directors because of the difficulty of working with him. Biographies explain that McQueen was always making demands trying to change scenes to his advantage. When other actors would be goofing off between takes, playing cards or joking around, McQueen would often be with a director saying, “Can we film the scene this way?” According to Vaughn, he complained about the gun Brynner was using in the film, a Colt Peacemaker with an ivory grip.

“You didn’t notice it?” McQueen asked. “It has a f*ck’n pearl handle. He shouldn’t have a gun like that. It’s too f*ck’n fancy. Nobody’s gonna look at anything else with that goddamn gun in the picture.” McQueen also complained about the size of Brynner’s horse, mostly that it was the biggest. Vaughn told him he had the biggest horse. “I don’t care about yours,” McQueen told him. “It’s Brynner’s horse I’m worried about.” McQueen at the time couldn’t challenge Brynner’s stardom, but he could try to steal scenes in the film and ultimately the film itself and in this he was largely successful. Stealing a scene is quite a bit more subtle than adding lines or rewriting a script: it means, perhaps while an actor recites dialog, the other actor in a scene does something unscripted, like lighting a cigarette in a strange way or something else interesting to divert audience attention to himself.

This is called in the parlance of 1960s Hollywood (or 2011 Hollywood for that matter) as being “non-giving” or a “self stroker.” Anyone who has watched the film can see several examples of scene stealing by McQueen. In one scene he removes his hat to properly judge the sunlight in preparation for a gunfight as he sits in a wagon next to Brynner. He takes a shotgun shell and wiggles it, allowing the pellets inside to loudly jiggle. These were unscripted adlibs. Brynner was less than pleased. “This annoyed Brynner, who claimed that McQueen was trying to steal scenes,” a biography of McQueen reads. “Brynner also refused to draw his gun in a scene with McQueen, not wanting to have his character (Chris) outdrawn.” This is where McQueen had it over Brynner. A former U.S. Marine, McQueen had experience with guns and was reportedly good with them. His practiced ability to draw fast with a prop gun was described as “manic.” Brynner on the other hand had little use for guns and little experience with them (though the film makes it seem otherwise at times).

McQueen openly expressed contempt for Brynner’s lack of gun skills. Brynner went on to further stardom, but McQueen soared higher in the 1960s. His performance as the character Vin in Magnificent Seven is what many people consider to be the most memorable of that film. It led to his subsequent appearance in The Great Escape and the famous motorcycle jump performed by stuntman Bud Elkins (doubling for McQueen) that made McQueen a mega-star. Amazon.com: The Magnificent Seven: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson: Amazon Digital Services LLC on October 3, 2002 Format: DVD Yul Brynner, back in the late 1950's, wanted to direct an American version of the SEVEN SAMURAI, as an western. So he bought up the movie rights. He wanted to cast Anthony Quinn in the lead, as Chris. Brynner had been directed by Quinn in the remake of THE BUCCANEER. Quinn would have been great as Chris, the leader of the Seven; and what a different film it would have been.

But, alas, Brynner himself took the part, and put his own stamp of individuality on it. He walked like a cross between a panther and a ballet dancer; light on the balls of his feet. Ironically, as an actor, he was slow on the draw, and not used to Westerns. But artistically, this was never apparent in the finished film. Many of the Seven's actors had seen the Kurosawa film, and they were very excited about transferring it to the American West. Eli Wallach, as Calvera, in just a few short scenes, found both the humor and the cruelty in the bandit chieftan. His accent and speech pattern were fairly authentic; more so certainly than the young German actor, Horst Buchholz, endeavoring to find a southwestern/Texan/Mexican drawl. Director, John Sturges, had great hopes for Horst; the camera loved him. But it was the trio of studs, Steve McQueen as Vin, Charles Bronson as O'Reilly, and James Coburn as Britt, that dominated the frame.

Steve McQueen, wearing skin-tight leather stovepipe chaps, spent a lot of time finding ways to upstage Yul Brynner. There was a rumor that he would have preferred playing Chico, the Buchholz character. McQueen's manic physical performance, lightning fast with a pistol and a quip, seemed to work well for him, and it gave him more than his share of focus. Read more › The Great Escape: 50th anniversary - Telegraph Film The Great Escape: 50th anniversary The Great Escape made a star of Steve McQueen, the epitome of cool. But behind the scenes a clash of male egos was giving rise to some decidedly unheroic behaviour Steve McQueen in The Great Escape Photo: Rex Features By Sinclair McKay 3:43PM GMT 24 Dec 2014 There are classic films , and there are those – very few – that take on extraordinary lives of their own. One of them, the prisoner-of-war adventure The Great Escape, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this June, is now woven deeply into Britain’s cultural tapestry, a landmark in its own right – endlessly quoted, endlessly watched, its style endlessly emulated.

The film’s most famous image – Steve McQueen on that Triumph TR6 Trophy motorbike – became an entire generation’s shorthand for cool. Elmer Bernstein’s jauntily catchy theme music, used frequently in beer advertisements, and the unofficial anthem of the England football team’s travelling brass band, is a metonym for good-humoured masculinity. The film was based on a book by the Australian PoW veteran Paul Brickhill, his first-hand account of the ill-fated mass escape in spring 1943 from Stalag Luft III in what is now Zagan, Poland. On March 24 76 men initially escaped via a 330ft tunnel, 30ft below ground (Brickhill suffered claustrophobia and stayed behind), one of the most daring escapes of the Second World War. Seventy-three of the escapees were quickly recaptured, 50 of them executed by the Gestapo. As in the film, hundreds of PoWs had been involved in the escape plot; there really were expert forgeries and dyed clothes; there really had been three painstakingly built tunnels (Tom, Dick and Harry), dug out with cutlery and supported with hundreds of wooden bed boards.

And the length of the tunnel through which the prisoners escaped really had been miscalculated, and came up short, so that the men didn’t emerge into the relative safety of a forest, as planned, but just ahead of the tree line, in view of the camp’s observation posts. The film’s director, John Sturges, who had previously been at the helm of the smash-hit western The Magnificent Seven (1960), later said that he was always drawn to 'stories of courage’, plus narratives that involved the selfless, more sacrificial side of human nature. Related Articles Are these the 24 best war films? 15 Sep 2015 Given how much the film is loved now, it is surprising to learn that Sturges had some initial difficulties finding a studio that would back the project. A possible reason is that for the previous few years cinema screens had been blocked solid with war films – a genre that the British understandably took to with relish, but of which the big studios were growing weary. Another possible reason is that the film’s narrative featured no women, no love interest. The lack of a glamorous actress in the cast may have made it seem very much less bankable.

McQueen was jealous of James Garner's white sweater (REX FEATURES) Nevertheless, the Mirisch Company and United Artists rode in. As with The Magnificent Seven, this was to be an ensemble piece, and would even feature three of the Seven: James Coburn, Charles Bronson and the rapidly rising star Steve McQueen. The other big American name was James Garner, who was famous for playing the card-sharp anti-hero of the hit television series Maverick. From the British side, the main role of 'Big X’ – Sqd Ldr Roger Bartlett – went to a commanding Richard Attenborough (the original Bartlett, Richard Harris, had dropped out, having apparently objected to the part being diminished in a script re-draft). Donald Pleasence was 'The Forger’, Colin Blythe, crippled by failing eyesight; Gordon Jackson was the RAF intelligence officer Andy 'Mac’ Macdonald. Today part of the pleasure of watching the film is wondering how on earth they managed to force together so many vertiginous egos and actually keep the cameras rolling. The truth was that they didn’t always manage to do so. The three-month shoot took place near Munich, starting in June 1962.

The budget, at about $4 million, would have seemed big to the British actors, but perhaps rather more modest to their Hollywood counterparts. Certainly Sturges felt that he had to keep the whole operation very tight and was keenly aware that time and money could not be squandered. The initial idea had been to make the film in California, largely for logistical reasons. But Sturges and his crew couldn’t find anywhere in America that resembled a Bavarian forest. Before long they fixed on coming to Europe because, as Sturges pointed out, 'Germany looks like Germany.’ The crew found an area of forest in which to build the main set – the vast Stalag Luft camp. To do so they stripped away hundreds of trees, with the promise that they would replant two for every one that came down. The set construction was, according to the actor David McCallum, who played Flt Lt Eric Ashley-Pitt, in charge of 'dispersal’, sometimes a communal affair.

'Every time we had a break,’ he recalled a few years ago, 'we were asked to sit there and knit together these pieces of rubber tubing, which went on to be the barbed wire that ran around the camp.’ Off-set, life was much more lively. McCallum said, 'Everyone drove like a maniac, including Donald Pleasence, who’d brought his Jag over. But Steve [McQueen] was the guy – mirroring the film, almost – who took the most risks and had the traffic police in awe of him. When he was pulled over they’d say, “Herr McQueen, good morning, we’re delighted that once again you’ve won the special prize,” and cart him off to the jail. Once I asked him what he did in a crash. He told me you should aim for the smallest trees.’ Tom Adams, 23 at the time, had just come from doing Shakespeare in London theatres for comically modest wages. By contrast, the money he received for playing RAF officer Dai Nimmo, in charge of 'diversions’, would enable him to buy his first car.

And the expenses he received while living in Munich gave him – and all the actors – the run of the best restaurants and bars. McQueen has his make-up touched up in one of the tunnels (REX FEATURES) 'It was a lovely summer. I had a hell of a time,’ he says now. 'Steve McQueen was as mad as a hatter. He wrote off six or seven cars out there.’ Adams knew instantly that he was in the presence of someone special. 'Whatever it was about Steve McQueen… I couldn’t put my finger on it,’ Adams, 74, says. 'There he was, about five foot seven, skinny… But on nights out in Munich, if he walked into the bar, the women – whoomph – would be around him. What did he have?’ One thing McQueen certainly had was chutzpah. Though not yet a bona fide film legend (Bullitt, Le Mans and The Thomas Crown Affair would come much later), he was already exhibiting the behaviour of a great Hollywood diva.

A few days into shooting he was invited to view rushes of the footage that had been shot so far, and it was immediately apparent to him that his character, the insolent, fiercely independent Capt Virgil Hilts, veteran of 17 escape attempts, seemed to be spending much of his screen time in the isolation cell, the 'cooler’. By contrast, his acting rival James Garner, playing Hendley the ingenious 'Scrounger’ who could procure everything from chocolates to cameras, was getting rather meatier material. McQueen – according to many of his co-stars and crew members – furiously declined to film any more of his scenes until the script was reworked to give him more to do; hence the brilliant, though wholly fictional, motorbike chase, which had not figured in the original script. 'On another occasion,’ Adams remembers, 'I overheard McQueen and the director in a corner. The director was saying, “For God’s sake, Steve, you have to say the lines!” McQueen didn’t want to deliver the lines, he wanted the scene to be all reaction shots.

He wasn’t a big star then – but he knew this was his chance to become a big star.’ Such were the crises that McQueen’s agent had to fly over to Germany to smooth things over. 'McQueen had power for the first time in his life,’ Adams says. 'He was jealous of James Garner, who was very handsome in character with his white sweater. McQueen was upset about that sweater.’ So upset, that he demanded a costume swap, according to Adams. 'The production people said, “We’ll get Garner to change into a sweatshirt and you can wear the jumper.”’ Eventually, McQueen calmed down and the swap never took place. For his part, James Garner was amused by McQueen’s attempts to manoeuvre himself to the apex of the ensemble cast. Rather than feeling threatened, he had a part in trying to talk the actor round when he threw a tantrum. 'He [Steve] wanted to re-shoot everything that we’d done,’ Garner said in an interview some 40 years later, 'and hell, we were hurting for money and time and everything. So a couple of days later, John Sturges came to me and said, “Jim, you’re the star of the picture.

Steve is out.”’ Rather than grabbing for glory, Garner decided to open up diplomatic channels to bring McQueen back. 'I took Steve and Coburn,’ Garner recalled, 'and we went over to my house in Munich and we went through the script. I said, “Well, what’s your problem, Steve?” “Well, I don’t like this. I don’t like that.” We went through a lot of scenes. I said, “This is silly. You don’t like anything, Steve.”’ Part of the problem, it seemed, was McQueen’s determination that his character remain cool and inscrutable. 'We finally figured out,’ Garner said, '“Steve, you want to be the hero, but you don’t want to do anything heroic.”’ Donald Pleasence as Colin Blythe, the 'Forger' (REX FEATURES) There was also tension between McQueen and Richard Attenborough, who, as escape mastermind Bartlett, had a big chunk of screen time, which rattled McQueen. Attenborough asked why the American was so hostile towards him. James Coburn told him that it was 'paranoia’. McQueen wasn’t the only cast member who wanted to exert his influence on the script.

Donald Pleasence was keen to offer advice about the reality of life in the PoW camps to Sturges, but was impatiently shooed away for his impertinence. Pleasence had not let on to Sturges that while serving with the RAF during the war he had spent time as a PoW after his Lancaster bomber was shot down over Nazi territory – he knew his stuff rather better than the director. (When Sturges found out the truth he went to some pains to consult Pleasence properly.) Many of the cast were delighted just to be there. Among the younger actors was the pop star John Leyton (who had recorded the number-one hit Johnny Remember Me for the producer Joe Meek in 1961). In the film he portrayed Willie the 'Tunnel King’, right-hand man to Charles Bronson’s hot-headed Danny. Leyton, now 78, remembers fondly not only how the production opened other Hollywood doors for him, but also how it got him out of an awkward spot in England. A trained actor, he was a reluctant heart-throb to the nation’s teenage girls.

'I welcomed the film being shot in Germany because I’d just recorded another couple of singles and in England I was being followed down the street by screaming fans,’ he recalls. 'They were becoming quite a problem. I couldn’t go out on my own, it was getting that bad.’ Charles Bronson was a brooding presence on set, and although Leyton recalls his screen buddy with some fondness, he acknowledges that others were not so enamoured. 'Charlie Bronson didn’t get on too well with James Garner,’ he says. 'Charlie could be quite abrupt. He could come out with some outrageous remarks. He was introduced one night to a German woman and instantly said to her, “Why don’t you shave under your goddam arms?”’ Leyton recalls one eventful evening at the house Garner was renting in Munich. 'We started playing cards,’ he says. 'And I was winning. But then Garner accused Bronson of not playing his hand properly. Bronson said, “You accusing me?” And suddenly they were squaring off. It was handbags at dawn.’ There was also the delicate matter off-set of Bronson making eyes at David McCallum’s wife, the actress Jill Ireland – and Ireland reciprocating.

Tom Adams recalls the excruciating awkwardness of nights out in Munich when Bronson and Ireland would be spotted together in restaurants. 'Charlie Bronson was a monster,’ Adams says, with some feeling. 'He should have been in horror films.’ Jill Ireland clearly didn’t think so – four years later she divorced McCallum and married Bronson (the two men somehow remained friends). Possibly the film’s most totemic moment, and its biggest diversion from the real-life escape – Steve McQueen’s doomed motorcycle leap over the Swiss border fences – was carried out by the stuntman Bud Ekins. Which is not to say that McQueen couldn’t have pulled it off. He was an accomplished biker, just as able as many of the stunt riders working on the film. The stuntman Bud Ekins performs the jump over the wires (REX FEATURES) While Ekins played McQueen’s character, Hilts, McQueen appeared in the same sequence, playing a German rider giving chase. Keen to show off his prowess, he also played a German soldier who is knocked off his bike after Hilts strings wire across the road. The film’s insurers, however, refused to allow McQueen to tackle the final leap.

But when the cameras stopped rolling, it was a very different story, John Leyton recalls. 'The stupid thing,’ he says, 'was that Steve and me and James Coburn and Charlie Bronson all did the jump when the crew went home after shooting. We took the bikes out, rode them round and did the jump. And,’ he adds, laughing, 'it was actually quite easy. Well – Coburn nearly came off. But obviously it was not proper barbed wire, it was simply rubber. Also, when you rode into that dip behind the hillock, there was a hidden ramp. So you automatically went into the air. And Bud Ekins was there to show us how to do it.’ When the shoot ended, there were wrap parties and everyone went their own ways – Leyton heard little more about the film until its release the following summer, when he went to the London premiere. Aside from some newspaper advertising, there was little of the intense hype that we take for granted with today’s blockbusters, although the premiere attracted the A-list of the day. Leyton recalls, 'Terence Stamp came up to me in the interval and congratulated me on my screen relationship with Charles Bronson.’ Not everyone was impressed.

Penelope Gilliatt, one of the foremost film critics of the time, wrote, 'The cocky music doesn’t help… nor does the fact that the German who runs the camp is 10 times more sympathetic than his charges, like a weary schoolmaster in charge of a maddening class.’ She concluded that the film had 'a script ready made for the Goons’. Time magazine also had concerns, partly about the use of colour in what it felt ought to have been a stark, monochrome film, but it at least observed that The Great Escape was 'the greatest escapism’. Audiences agreed with gusto – in its first year the film pulled in about $12 million, making it one of the biggest financial successes of 1963. Its reputation thereafter grew and grew. Millions of people introduced to the film via television would probably argue that Christmas and Bank Holidays are not quite complete without it. Importantly, the film was also appreciated by the men who had actually been in the PoW camps.

Steve McQueen’s jump may have been pure Hollywood (to appeal to US audiences, American involvement in the filmed escape was exaggerated), but John Leyton and Tom Adams fondly recall how the film afforded them the chance to meet real veterans, both on the shoot and then years later at military reunions. There was one at the Imperial War Museum in 2003 at which, Adams remembers with a rueful laugh, 'there were more real veterans than there were surviving actors from the film. Real live wires. And when you think about it now – what a story, and all true. The tunnel bellows, the dyeing of the uniforms, and above all, the courage.’ The film is now enthralling a new generation. 'Little boys come up to me saying it’s their favourite film,’ Leyton says. 'It’s pure Boy’s Own. But the real PoW veterans were very happy.

They were impressed at how the film caught the reality of it all.’ The Great Escape is broadcast on December 25 at 2.50pm (5USA) Start your free 30 day Amazon Prime trial» The Magnificent Seven [Blu-ray] [1960]: Amazon.co.uk: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, John Sturges: DVD & Blu-ray Product Description Product Description Academy Award® winner Yul Brynner (The King And I, 1956) stars in the landmark western that launched the film careers of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn. Tired of being ravaged by an army of marauding bandits, the residents of a small Mexican village seek help from seven American gunfighters. The only problem? It’s seven against 50! Also featuring Eli Wallach and Robert Vaughn, and set against Elmer Bernstein’s Oscar® Nominated score, director John Sturges’ thrilling adventure belongs in any Blu-ray collection.

From Amazon.co.uk Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen.

If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum... Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! --Robert Horton --This text refers to the DVD edition. Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Question: Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and which other actor starred in both The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape films?
Answer: James Coburn